A place for a tired old woman to try to figure things out so that the world makes a bit of sense.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Tossing 'Bodies' Overboard Loses American Hearts and Minds

Not so long ago, our local Rep. Ralph Hall was on the House floor attacking Marianas sex slaves for willingly participating in human trafficking. So nothing surprises us locals when we see our industrial overlords behaving like Orcs.

Today a nice little article about joint electrical production and use between the Texas and Mexico power generation industries was the frame for some remarks that reflect that continuing battle against the public waged by our business community. Of course, looser environmental standards and lower paid workers are very attractive to the Orcs.

Mexico remains a regulated utility monopoly, and building a plant involves heavy dealings with unions, said George Baker, research director for Houston consultancy Energia.com.

"They've got a very aggressive and powerful union that really costs them a lot," he said. "So if you import electricity, one of the things you get from that is that you don't have to hire a new body.(Emphasis added.)"

Isn't that attractive? it's a selling point to generate in Texas (deregulated, and a right-to-work state) because you can pitch those bodies out there to starve. Unions are an enemy, giving wages and decent working conditions to faceless bodies.

To me this characterizes the entire rationale of the GoPerv Party, that the employee is just a body; a disposable unit. We're not a consumer, such as are supposed now to go shopping to bring out economy back out of the pit created by corporate indifference. We're not an occupant of the society the Orcs participate in. We're a body that can be thrown to whatever lions of the moment are entertaining the hoarders of wealth.

Most encouragingly, though, the bodies that our business community are blithely tossing aside have votes. The great unwashed are showing they aren't such disposable nonentities in poll after poll. Today they are not accepting the 'Go Shopping' theme, they are not taken in.

One in three Americans expects a U.S. recession in the next year, and less than a quarter think home prices will rise, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Hispanics and African-Americans were more likely than whites to predict a recession, reflecting a deeper sense of job and economic anxiety among minorities, who represent a disproportionately large share of lower-income groups.

"There has been much, much, much more talk about a recession in the last 30 days than there had been before," pollster John Zogby said, noting that the key factors behind the latest downturn worries were issues that literally hit home for the general public -- housing and jobs.

Starving people are revolutionaries. It looks like time for the GoPervs to start following the jobs abroad, or get to work fixing the mess they've made here. I don't expect the kind of mentality that blithely tosses 'bodies' aside has the mental acuity to make that change.

Discontent has been thoroughly ignored by the businesses behind our present worker-unfriendly environment. Workers are not content to be 'bodies' that are tossed out with the Kyoto protocols. Look! we've stopped buying swill.

I believe the polls are some early rumblings of return to respect for human beings, and return to human rights.

************************************************************************************Below (as promised): Woody hugs a tree in the Bandelier National Monument.